Catoro COVID-19 Crisis Fund

To all the cat lovers of the city, this is Nathan, Founder of Catoro. This is a hard message to write to you all. As many of you may already see, our city and country are beginning to feel the impacts of this public health, and soon to be, financial crisis. 

Since we opened Catoro in July of 2019, we've made it our mission to build a business with purpose and one that drives social change in our community. We've been so fortunate to have such an amazing and passionate group of followers that have allowed for us to reach where we are today. 

As I've always valued and fostered transparency about the business with my team, as well as with my customers, I think now is the time that I share with you where we stand. Many of you who have frequented Catoro have probably seen massive changes in our business and the services that we provide over the course of the past half year. Our business model from day one has shifted quite a bit to where we are today and we are happy with what we can provide to our guests now. 

One of the major challenges that we've discovered since opening Catoro is the extremely high overhead costs it requires to maintain a safe space for our cats as well as our guests. If you didn't already know, Catoro has 4 main owners, one of which is myself. Since we opened, we've all needed to maintain our full time day jobs in order to continue to financially support the business. There have been months where we struggled just to pay our own mortgages in order to keep the business running, not to mention the huge impact on each of our personal lives. 

But regardless of the hardships we've faced, we've been dedicated to maintaining the status quo and continuing to do business as well as we can, adding new services and improvements where needed to ensure that we can pay our expenses. 

We are now at a point where our business is in jeopardy with the signs of store closures and lockdowns coming soon. Even if it is not imposed by the government, we don't want to have to take the risk of remaining open, just to make enough money to stay in business. Catoro's philosophy has always echoed my own beliefs, in giving back more than we ask for, so it is difficult to have to make this fundraiser now. Regardless of the store being open to the public or not, we still must employ our staff to care for the cats each day, which makes this so much more difficult of a time. (update Apr 29 - All the cats have been either adopted or placed into foster care. We still need your support however to help us cover operating expenses since we didn't get our rent waived. Your donation ensures that Catoro can still be here for future cats to return to once the pandemic has passed.)

With our back's against the wall, I must ask from myself, the other owners of Catoro, and from our team, please help support us in keeping Catoro open. Any small donation is appreciated deeply. As an alternative to donating, purchasing a gift card to use at a later date when we are open is also hugely beneficial to us in this time of need. 

Gift Cards https://catorocafe.com/collections/gift-cards 

If we can reach our goal, then we can close down temporarily to ensure the safety of our staff and our guests from spreading the COVID-19 virus. Otherwise we will have no alternative but to take extra measures while open to limit operating hours, customer capacity, and improving cleaning protocols beyond what we already do. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who's visited and supported Catoro. It's been a dream come true for me to build this business that provides such a positive impact to the community we serve. Whether we make it past this crisis or not, it's been an honour to serve our local community and I thank you for accepting us and giving us the opportunity. 

Nathan
Founder - Catoro Cafe